More than a quarter of postal workers are expected to break the strike later
this week as Royal Mail launched an advertising campaign to encourage its
staff to go to work.

The Royal Mail spent tens of thousands of pounds placing full-page adverts in all national newspapers appealing to its staff to defy the postal union by crossing the picket line later this week.

The Communication Workers Union has called out its 120,000 members on two more days of national strikes, on Friday this week and Monday next week. This will take the industrial action into its fourth week, risking crippling the Christmas post for many consumers and severely damaging many small businesses that rely on the post.

Amid signs the public is losing sympathy for striking postmen, the Royal Mail called on "its people" to "decide about your future" and stop striking. A YouGov poll in The Daily Telegraph earlier this week suggested the public now equally blamed the workers for the strikes as they did the management. This was in contrast to two weeks ago when more blamed the management.

The Royal Mail appeal said: "We need to face the future together – not try to turn the clock back, as the union wants to do.

"A quarter of postmen and women have already chosen to work and to keep looking after their customers through these strikes."

The company's executives hope that more than a quarter will not strike this week. Every day that a postman strikes, he loses a day's pay and most workers have so far lost just two days' salary.

However, if the strike at the end of this week goes ahead they will have lost 4 days' pay, with many London workers having lost 18 days' pay, because they stopped work for many days during August, September and October in the run up to the national strike.

The union is angry that the Royal Mail has hired 30,000 temporary workers to help sort through the backlog of delayed post. It is taking the company to the High Court on Friday in an attempt to injunct the company, claiming the Royal Mail has broken employment law by hiring "strikebreakers".

The Royal Mail said it has broken no laws, and the agency workers are carrying out additional duties, rather than replacing striking workers.

Despite the recriminations, talks between the management and the CWU leaders are continuing at the TUC headquarters in an attempt to resolve the differences between the two sides. The union still insists that it has the right to veto any key change in working practice, while the management insists that postmen will have to work more flexible hours.

Though progress is being made, time is running out to reach a breakthrough. If one is not made by Thursday night, the current backlog of delayed post, which had fallen below 20 million, is likely to climb rapidly.